A Yearend Report and a Thank You

Once again it is time to give a shout-out to everyone who helped this year to support my mission: spreading awareness of Odd Nansen and his inspiring diary.  Whether by responding to my blogs, providing referrals, writing reviews, or simply providing encouragement, as Nansen once said, “It would take too long to mention all who helped, so I mention no one.  But honor to them all for their share.”

This year also saw my website get a well-earned facelift, with new and more accessible information.  I am particularly fond of my “On This Day in History” calendar, found at the bottom of my homepage, and as a sidebar on most other pages.  I am continually adding dates, focused primarily on WWII, but with a sprinkling of idiosyncratic entries that struck me as note-worthy.  (If you have important dates to suggest, just let me know.)

And here is my 2025 report card:

24: Blogs written (including this one)

23: Presentations made (New Jersey/Pennsylvania/North Carolina/Connecticut/South Carolina/New York/Illinois/Norway)

14,500: Miles travelled

$38,045: Cumulative to-date donations of book royalties and speaking fees to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (50%) and The Norwegian Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities (50%).

Happy New Year!

From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps

Hailed by The New Yorker as “among the most compelling documents to come out of the war,” From Day to Day is a World War II concentration camp diary—one of only a handful ever translated into English—secretly written by Odd Nansen, a Norwegian political prisoner. Arrested in January 1942, Nansen, son of polar explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen (Nobel Peace Prize 1922) was held captive for the duration of the war in various Nazi camps in Norway and Germany.

Nansen’s diary entries detail his palpable longing for his wife and family, his constantly frustrated hopes for release, the quiet strength and sometimes ugly prejudices of his fellow prisoners, and his horror at the especially barbaric treatment reserved for the Jews. The diary brilliantly illuminates Nansen’s daily struggle, not only to survive, but to preserve his sanity and maintain his humanity in a world engulfed by fear and hate.

First published in English in 1949, From Day to Day had been out of print for almost seventy years. The new edition contains entries and sketches never previously available in English. It also features a new introduction and extensive annotations by Timothy Boyce and a preface by Thomas Buergenthal, whose life (as a ten year-old) Nansen saved while in Sachsenhausen, later recounted in his own memoir A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy.